Holidaze Away From Home

Happy New Year! It’s crazy to think that I have been living in Spain for three months. The weeks have flown and I am more and more comfortable and happy here. I am so happy and grateful with my life right now!

When I planned to move to Barcelona, I knew that I would be spending the holidays away from home. Of course, I was worried about this. My loving mother loves cooking and having family and friends over for all of the holidays and I knew my family would miss me terribly! Luckily, I had great friends to celebrate with.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love eating and the entire day is devoted to cooking and eating. Myself along with my friends from my TEFL class came together and cooked. I picked up the turkey and brought it and carried it on the metro! I think it was around 3.5 kg, whatever that it is in pounds. I had never cooked one before, but thanks to an idiot proof buzzfeed article it was not too complicated!

Yummmm, food. Nope, not gluten or dairy free.

I had about two week off from work for Christmas and New Years! I decided to visit a few friends in the United Kingdom which was so great! I am a slightly shameless fan of all sorts of British media so I was beyond thrilled to experience the British accent in real life.

My friends Sarah, Mel, and I started our trip in Bedford, England where we stayed with our friend Sophie! Bedford is about 30 minutes outside of London and it reminded me a bit of the towns outside of New York City. It’s hard to explain exactly why, but I loved it! Sophie and her family were so welcoming and it was nice to be in a real house!

On the walk into town.

Mel and I outside of Sophie’s.

>Way too excited for fish and chips. Mhmmm, fish and chips.

Mel, Sophie, and I!! 🙂

Sarah, Mel, and I went into London for the on the Sunday before Christmas! Holy clusterf***, batman. We did all the tourist stops and it was just crazy with people!! I saw the Rosetta Stone and some of the parthenon at the British museum. We visited Buckingham palace, Big Ben and the House of Parliament. We were Americans and ate chipotle for lunch. It was completely necessary.

I don’t know if I’m better at creeping or selfie taking. hmm.

For Christmas Mel and I flew up to Edinburgh, Scotland to celebrate with Yasmin, a friend from Westhampton Beach High School! Yasmin went to University in Edinburgh and I have been wanting to visit her for years! Edinburgh is a really cool city. JK Rowling is from there and you can definitely see how the architecture and overall feel of the city inspired the books!!

It was so nice to celebrate the holidays with Yasmin and her flatmates. It was almost everyones first Christmas away from home, which made it even nicer. On Christmas Eve we relaxed for most of the day, did TONS of grocery shopping and then had a non-traditional Christmas Eve dinner of home made sushi. Sushi is so easy to make!! We watched the Santa tracker online and listened to ghetto Christmas music.

Christmas Eve Double Rainbow Miracle

Christmas even was great! Everyone exchanged gifts from Poundland, the UK’s version of a dollar store. I received a miniature pool set, coloring book and chocolate!! It was so nice to wake up and have people to sit and hang out with, just like Christmas at home!

Yasmin and a few of her flatmates are vegetarian and vegan, so all the food we cooked was vegan!! I was so happy as there is no dairy in vegan food. We spent about six hours chopping, mixing, stirring, baking, frying, mashing and finally eating! There was about fifteen of us for dinner, it was a really nice first Christmas away from home!

After Christmas, Melissa and I did quite a bit of relaxing. The sunset around 3:30 in Edinburgh and it was pretty chilly so we tried to be active during the afternoon and then would come back and relax. My back started hurting while I was there and I googled “mid back pain” and the internets told me that that happens from not being active enough. So there was that.

We went to Glasgow for one day to meet up with my friend Joe from Long Island and his brother and his girlfriend. It was nice to see a different city in Scotland and Glasgow was super Harry Pottery. The University was GORGEOUS and the cider was delicious. That was one of the best parts of the UK – all the cheap cider!!

The University of Glasgow was basically Hogwarts.

The best part of the trip was coming back to Barcelona. Being away from the city for a couple weeks made me re-realize how beautiful the city is and how much I love being here! Although, not speaking Spanish for two weeks made me forget so much, ahh!! Que lastima.

My parents are coming to visit this weekend, I am so excited! I can’t wait to watch them see Barcelona and see how they react to the people who walk around Raval and all of the different cultural customs that are native to Barcelona!!

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

2 comments on “Holidaze Away From Home”

patricia moreland

January 11, 2015

Oh Alexandra, you have a gift for writing. There are no words to describe how much I enjoyed reading your thoughts about the Holidays. And the pictures. One is better than the next. To know you are so happy and well adjusted there means a lot….so glad you are lovin’ it and getting so much fun and enjoyment…….and sharing. Thank you so much. You are so loved